Ryan Coogler Pens Heartfelt Essay to Ava DuVernay

Black Panther director Ryan Coogler penned an “ode” to his friend and fellow director Ava DuVernay on the opening day of A Wrinkle in Time. As Black directors behind two of the most anticipated movies of the year, Coogler honors DuVernay calling her a “pioneer.”

Before it became a trend, DuVernay was using her talent to create inclusive work that presents women and people of color on the screen. For this, Coogler calls her “inclusion, equity, and representation.”

“Ava DuVernay is someone who makes the impossible look easy. It’s why I feel privileged to call her my big sister. I met her in 2013, but she’s one of those people who you feel like you’ve always known,” Coogler wrote in the opening of his essay, published on ESPN.com.

Coogler described the writing in A Wrinkle in Time as “beautiful.” He then speaks about being in awe watching Ava work on set at Disney, while he was working on Black Panther.

“I watched closely from across the hall at Disney while working on Black Panther as my big sister inspired her crew with love and navigated the challenges of studio filmmaking, adapting a book that many people called unfilmable into a movie that explodes with hope, with love, and with women warriors. But above all, it’s a film about a little black girl with glasses — like my mom, like my wife, like my big sister Ava — who refuses to accept that her dad is lost.”

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